Chapter 8 Flashcards
Norms
Rules that regulate social life, including explicit laws and implicit conventions
Normal: Just like me
Role
A given social position that is governed by a set of norms for proper behaviour. Social Roles are shaped by culture
Culture
A program of shared rules that governs the behaviour of people in a community or society.
A set of values, beliefs, and customs shared by most members of that community.
Obedience Study
Designed by Milgram, a series of studies to test whether people would obey an authority figure when directly ordered to violate their ethical standards.
Every participant administered some amount of shock and 65% of participants shocked the participant all the way to 500V. Would the results differ with women, children, teens, etc.
Disobeyed the law of ethics: participants couldn’t leave the study and they weren’t informed about the experiment fully. For this reason it could not be replicated
Factors Leading to Disobedience (5)
- When the experimenter left the room
- When the victim was right there in the room
- When two experimenters issued conflicting demands
- When the person ordering them to continue was an ordinary man
- When the participant worked with peers who refused to go further
Milgram Concluded..
Milgram concluded:
Obedience is a function of the situation
Participants see themselves as instruments to effect the wishes of person in authority
Critics question both the ethics and validity of Milgram’s study
Evaluation of Obedience Study
Raises ethical questions regarding the use of deception in study
People thought research was counting on their behaviour
Ethical concern over emotional pain experienced by participants
Influence of the situation over personality traits questioned by some
Linked to actions in Nazi Germany and prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib in Bagdad
Standford Prison Experiment
Designed by Zimbardo and Haney
Male university students randomly assigned to be prisoners or guards
Prisoner role – associated with distress, helplessness, apathy, rebellion, and panic
Guard role – some were nice, others “tough but fair”, but a third of guards became punitive and harsh
Powerful demonstration of how the social situation affects behaviour
Why People Obeyed? (4)
- Allocating responsibility to the authority
- Routinizing the task
- Wanting to be polite
- Entrapment:
gradual process in which individuals escalate their commitment to a course of action to justify their investment of time, money, or effort
Social Influences on Beliefs
Social cognition:
-An area in social psychology concerned with social influences on thought, memory, perception, and beliefs
Current approaches draw on evolutionary theory, neuroimaging, surveys and experiments
Attribution Theory
Argues that people are motivated to explain their own and other people’s behaviour by attributing causes of that behaviour to a situation or a disposition
Situational Attribution
Something in the situation or environment caused the behaviour
Dispositional Attribution
Something in the person (e.g., traits or motive) caused the behaviour
Fundamental Attribution Error
The tendency, in explaining
other people’s behaviour, to
overestimate personality factors
and underestimate the influence of the situation
More prevalent in Western versus Eastern cultures
Why We Make the Fundamental Attribution Error? (3)
- Self-serving bias
- Group-serving bias
- Just-world bias
Self-serving Bias
The tendency, in explaining one’s own behaviour, to take credit for good actions and rationalize mistakes
Group-serving Bias
The tendency to explain favourably the behaviours of members of groups to which we belong
Just-world Hypothesis
Notion that people need to believe the world is fair and justice is served; bad people are punished and good people are rewarded
When assumption called into question, people may engage in attributions involving blaming the victim
Attitudes
Attitudes are beliefs about people, groups, ideas or activities
Explicit Attitude
An attitude that we are aware of, that shapes our conscious decisions and actions, and that can be measured on questionnaires
Implicit Attitudes
an attitude that we are unaware of, that may influence our behaviour in ways we do not recognize, and that is measured in various indirect ways
Attitude Change
Attitudes may change with new experiences and information, but also because of need for consistency
Cognitive Dissonance
State of tension that occurs when a person simultaneously holds two cognitions that are inconsistent; or when beliefs are incongruent with behaviour. Resolved by changing attitude or behaviour.
Familiarity Effect
When people feel more positively toward a person, item, or product the more familiar they are with it
Validity Effect
When people believe a statement is true or valid simply because it has been repeated many times
Do Genes Influence Attitudes
Attitudes are combination of learning, experience, and genetics
- Religious affiliation (the religion chosen) is not heritable; religiosity (the depth of religious feeling) has a genetic component
- Political affiliation is not heritable; political conservatism is highly heritable
Identical Twin Studies
Suggests that while genetics accounts for some attitudes, most result from ‘non shared environment’ -unique life experiences
Persuasion or “Brainwashing”
Brainwashing implies a person is unaware of why they change their minds
Coercive Persuasion
Designed to suppress an individual’s ability to reason, think critically, and make choices in his or her own best interests
Coercive Persuasion Occurs When.. (4)
- The person is subjected to entrapment
- The person’s problems are reduced to one simple attribution, which is repeatedly emphasized
- The person is offered a new identity and is promised salvation
- The person’s access to disconfirming (dissonant) information is severely controlled
* **Key is to dispel people’s illusions of invulnerability to coercive persuasion tactics
Need to Belong is Powerful Motivation
Social pain often worse than physical pain
Solitary confinement is internationally considered torture: ex. Time out.. Sort of
Social rejection ensures group members’ cooperation
When in a group we often behave differently than we would on our own
Group Behaviour and Conformity
Decisions we make in groups depend more on group structure & dynamics compared to personal factors
Conformity
Conformity involves taking action or adopting attitudes as a result of real or imagined group pressure
E.g., Asch’s line studies
Related to both social norms and culture
Groupthink
Groupthink is a tendency for all members of a group to think alike for the sake of harmony and to suppress disagreement
Symptoms of Groupthink (4)
- An illusion of invulnerability
- Self-censorship
- Pressure on dissenters to to conform
- An illusion of unanimity
Diffusion of responsibility
In groups, the tendency of members to avoid taking action because they assume others will
Bystander Apathy
In crowds, individuals’ failure to take action or call for help because they assume someone else will do so (e.g., Kitty Genovese)
Social Loafing
In work groups, where each member of a team slows down, letting others work harder
Deindividuation
In groups or crowds, the loss of awareness of one’s own individuality
Factors influencing deindividuation:
Size of the city or group; wearing uniforms or masks
Influences conforming to the norm of the specific situation, not overall mindlessness
Implications for sense of responsibility for behaviour
Altruism
The willingness to take selfless or dangerous action on behalf of others
Includes disobeying orders believed to be wrong or going against prevailing beliefs (dissent)
E.g., fight for Canadian women to have legal status
Situational factors in altruism & dissent:
- Perceive the need for intervention or help
- Cultural norms encourage you to take action
- You have an ally
- You become entrapped
Social Identity
The part of a person’s self-concept that is based on their identification with a nation, religious or political group, occupation, or other social affiliation
Ethnic Identity
A person’s identification with a racial or ethnic group
Acculturation
The process by which members of minority groups come to identify with the mainstream culture
Ethnocentrism
The belief that your own ethnic group, nation, or religion is superior to all others
Universal belief & may aid survival
Based on social identity of “us”, where everyone else is “them”
Fostered by competition, reduced by interdependence in reaching mutual goals
E.g., Robbers Cave studies
Robber Cave Experiment
Boys randomly assigned to be “Eagles” or “Rattlers”
Competitions fostered hostility between groups
Situations that required cooperation for success reduced hostility & increased cross-group friendships
Stereotype
Summary impression of a group, in which a person believes that all members of the group share a common trait or traits (positive, negative or neutral)
Stereotypes Distort Reality in 3 Ways
- Exaggerate differences between groups
- Produce selective perception
- Underestimate differences within other groups
Prejudice and its Origins
A strong, unreasonable dislike or hatred of a group, based on a negative stereotype
The origins of prejudice are universal because it has so many sources and functions:
Psychological, social, economic, and cultural
Psychological Causes of Prejudice
People inflate their own self-worth by disliking groups they see as inferior
Terror management theory– prejudice helps defend against existential terror of death (far reaching.. Less vulnerable maybe?)
Social Causes of Prejudice
By disliking “them”, we feel closer to others who are like us
Economic Causes of Prejudice
Legitimizes unequal economic treatment
Oldest prejudice is sexism Hostile sexism – active dislike of women Benevolent sexism – puts women on a pedestal
Cultural and National Causes of Prejudice
Bonds people to their own ethnic or national group
Defining and Measuring Prejudice
Not all people are prejudiced in the same way or to the same extent
People know they should not be prejudiced so measures of these attitudes have declined
Difference between explicit and implicit prejudice
Measure of Social Distance
Possible behavioural expression of prejudice; a reluctance to get “too close” to another group
Measures of what people do when stressed or angry
When angry, drunk, or frustrated, people often express their prejudice
Measure of Brain Activity
fMRI and PET scans determine which brain areas involved in forming stereotypes, holding prejudiced beliefs, and negative feelings toward another group
Measures o Implicit Attitudes
Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures the speed of people’s positive and negative associations to a target group (not much validity)
Measure Implicit Prejudice
Measures of symbolic racism
Measures of behaviours rather than attitudes
Measures of unconscious associations with target group (e.g., Implicit Association Test
Reducing Prejudice and Conflict (4)
- Both sides must have equal legal status, economic opportunities, and power
- Authorities and community institutions must provide moral, legal, and economic support for both sides
- Both sides must have opportunities to work and socialize together, formally and informally
- Both sides must cooperate, working together for a common goal
Social and cultural psychology would argue that ALL human beings contain the potential for both good and evil
Normal processes involving roles and situations can often lead people to behave in ways they may not otherwise
Expectations of different cultures can lead to fundamental attribution errors examples
Shaking hands, and bartering
Language-based cultural practices are very difficult to understand examples
deliberate insincerity
